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Links to broadcast quality audio files and transcripts -- Dr. Meyya Meyyappan, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. interviewed about using carbon nanotubes as 'iuterconnects' in integrated circuits or 'silicon chips.' Issued April 14, 2003.

Question 4. Can you make carbon nanotube interconnects smaller than copper interconnects in computer chips?

The audio recording is 1:40 minutes

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Full Transcript (below)


4. Can you make carbon nanotube interconnects smaller than copper interconnects in computer chips? (1:40 MINUTES)

Dr. Meyya Meyyappan: "We can make the carbon nanotube as an interconnect a lot smaller than what is currently allowed with aluminum or copper. That is one advantage, but that is not the only one. The more important thing is, while getting smaller, we hope that the carbon nanotube also will be a lot more robust. What I mean by that is the ability to put very, very high currents without the interconnect – the wiring itself not falling apart. Okay, that is precisely the problem with copper. When we are talking about going through the next four or five generations with increased speed, and decreased size and so on and so forth, the problem is becoming to be one of robustness. Copper itself is beginning to show its tendency to fall apart at currents of a million amperes in one square centimeter area -- because that’s the kind of current level we are looking at. And with the carbon nanotube that is not going to happen because the carbon nanotube shows that it can stay robust even another factor of a thousand which means up to, we can say, a billion amperes per one square centimeter area. So, that is a remarkable feature of this material. So, it’s a robustness."

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